At least one company's AI spending isn't paying off... Uber's warning... A 'SaaSpocalypse' revival... How to survive extinction... A convergence of expertise – and a super-signal to know...
'Is the juice worth the squeeze?'...
If you ask executives from ride-hailing platform Uber Technologies (UBER) this question about AI spending right now, they don't know.
The company's president and chief operating officer Andrew Macdonald said this quiet part out loud during a podcast published over the weekend.
Uber's AI spend – and cutting human jobs in part because of it – is getting "harder to justify," Macdonald said.
What led to this "head exploding" realization?
Uber used Anthropic's Claude Code to handle 25% of the company's coding work last quarter, and it blew through its allocated 2026 AI budget in four months. That was because of rising "token" costs paid to Anthropic to use the technology, all while Uber incentivized engineers to use AI.
Mind you, the company – which fancies itself an engineering business as much as anything else – does put AI to good work, using it to decide users' ride prices, drivers' most optimal routes, and other features that boost the company's margins. You could say the Uber app works better than it ever has.
But here's the rub...
Did Uber get 25% more productive and offer more features to users last quarter? Did projects that were previously on the cutting room floor get done? Did all the AI spending in the company's roughly $950 million research and development budget clearly pay off?
Macdonald asked his senior engineering leaders at Uber these questions.
The short answer is no...
As Macdonald said on the podcast...
That link is not there yet... It's very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and [say] we're actually producing like 25% more useful consumer features... Over the coming quarters and years, maybe that will become clearer, but today, it's hard, even if some of the underlying metrics are trending in a reality astronomical direction...
The interviewer commented that "AI is not free," and Macdonald agreed.
To most of us, AI might feel free, but "somebody's paying the bill," Macdonald said.
The companies like Uber are. So are consumers in parts of the country with rising electricity bills, or subscribers to the AI platforms. And some companies, like Uber, are slowing hiring plans to counter investments in AI. Other tech firms are laying people off.
I (Corey McLaughlin) am considering this anecdote a big indicator of the reality of the promise of AI, increasing "hyperscaler" spending, and "circular" agreements among firms like OpenAI and other tech leaders.
Absent a clear payoff or reducing AI spending, the current state of things is a not-so-virtuous cycle... The market seems to agree, with Uber shares down about 30% since a high in October 2025. And Uber's not alone in the struggle...
A 'SaaSpocalypse' revival...
Just look at Zscaler (ZS)... Shares of the cloud-based cybersecurity company crashed nearly 32% today after it reported earnings after yesterday's close.
The company beat Wall Street sales and earnings estimates, and only lowered its current quarterly revenue guidance slightly.
But a cloud company lowering guidance in the AI boom? That was enough for at least a dozen Wall Street analysts to lower their price targets for the stock.
It looks like a "SaaSpocalypse" revival, with perceived Software as a Service ("SaaS") losers within the AI story being severely punished.
This happening to Zscaler is one thing. It has a middling Stansberry Score of 57. But should the sentiment spread to the biggest tech firms, which have been carrying the market over the past four years, look out. It still might take some time, though.
Other companies are saying they're better off because of AI...
Our colleague Mike Barrett covered this part of the AI story in his weekly Select Value Opportunities update today.
He looked at cybersecurity firm Cloudflare (NET), which announced earlier this month that it was slashing 20% of its workforce as it restructured amid the AI boom... and its CEO Matthew Prince says he "has never had a better grasp of the business' performance."
Cloudflare has identified three essential roles inside every business – "builders, sellers, and measurers." As Mike wrote...
In Prince's view, those who create a company's products (builders) and sell them (sellers) are safe from extinction due to AI. Their proprietary knowledge, deep experience, and human touch are virtually impossible for a chatbot to replicate...
Instead, AI is coming for companies' measurers – those who do critical back-office work like run internal audits and track employee compliance. In fact, most of the 1,100-plus employees Cloudflare recently let go performed these kinds of tasks.
The big change is that AI can now do these functions far more efficiently. Thanks to AI, Prince says Cloudflare is closing its books at the end of each quarter faster and making fewer mistakes...
While Cloudflare's measurers are getting cut, the company has a record number of job openings. As Mike continued...
According to Prince, "AI will allow us to better measure our organizations so the humans on our teams can focus on creat[ing] and captur[ing] value: building and selling."
What this means is Cloudflare, and other businesses, will need more revenue-generators (builders and sellers) to stay a step ahead of AI.
Mike concluded, "the economics [of adopting AI] are too compelling not to." He pointed to Select Value Opportunities model portfolio holding Nvidia's (NVDA) latest quarterly earnings as the latest evidence and reiterated his bullish view on the company.
So when it comes to being an AI winner or loser, it might just come down to humans... By that, we mean company execs, investors, and everyone else with a better understanding of which jobs are "safe from extinction," which aren't, and where the juice is worth the squeeze.
A 'convergence' signal...
An AI bubble... rising oil and gas prices from the war in Iran... rising inflation... market concentration concerns... These are all things we've been writing about in these pages lately... and we don't expect the related market volatility to slow anytime soon.
But there are ways to make and protect your money in times like these. So how do you separate the ultimate winners from the losers? And how do you "see" what's coming next?
In addition to following the recommendations from the Stansberry Research team, we want to point you toward two experts who have combined their decades of investing and trading experience to come up with a new "smart money" indicator.
I'm talking about our friend and living Wall Street legend Marc Chaikin and expert trader Jonathan Rose, of our corporate affiliates Chaikin Analytics and InvestorPlace, respectively.
Both Marc and Jonathan walked away from careers serving the Wall Street elite to hand investing tools they've developed to regular folks. Now, they have one that hasn't been shared anywhere before.
It combines two completely different methods of tracking "smart money" moves in the market. One is drawn from Marc's Power Gauge system, the other from Jonathan's 14 years on the trading floor.
Jonathan's signal alone could have led you to a 780% gain on Occidental Petroleum (OXY) in just 42 days earlier this year when the war in Iran began... or an 833% winner on MP Materials (MP) in about two weeks, when the rare earth metals caught fire last summer.
When both Jonathan's and Marc's signals fire on the same stock at the same moment, you get a double-confirmation trigger, and they say this signal is firing on specific stocks right now.
So tomorrow night, at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Marc and Jonathan are coming together in a free presentation to explain the details and reveal the full method from beginning to end.
You can click here to register for the event now. When you do, you'll hear more directly from Marc and Jonathan, and you'll have the chance to access a special report on five places this "super-signal" is flashing today.
New 52-week highs (as of 5/26/26): ABB (ABBNY), Applied Materials (AMAT), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Arm Holdings (ARM), Ciena (CIEN), Canadian National Railway (CNI), Datadog (DDOG), Healthpeak Properties (DOC), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ex China Fund (EMXC), EnerSys (ENS), iShares MSCI South Korea Fund (EWY), Cambria Emerging Shareholder Yield Fund (EYLD), Fanuc (FANUY), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), iShares Convertible Bond Fund (ICVT), KraneShares Global Humanoid Robotics and Physical AI Index Fund (KOID), LXP Industrial Trust (LXP), Nucor (NUE), Ormat Technologies (ORA), Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy Fund (PBW), ProShares Ultra Technology (ROM), ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (SSO), Twist Bioscience (TWST), Texas Instruments (TXN), and State Street SPDR S&P Semiconductor Fund (XSD).
In today's mailbag, feedback on yesterday's Digest about the market's "make-or-break moment"... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Good article on how important the big picture is and how it can prevail over bad timing. However, even if you get the big picture right, you can still lose money in a whole bunch of different ways." – Subscriber Antonio S.
Corey McLaughlin comment: Very true. Having a view is one thing, but the actions you take are just as important...
That's why, in addition to writing about opportunities to grow your portfolio, we also talk about protecting your wealth and the ways to do that – be it through profit-taking strategies, like we mentioned with Brett Eversole yesterday, or employing stop losses, which Brett and many of our editors also recommend.
Most individual investors focus on the buying part – that's the fun thing – and never think about how or why to sell. But having a plan to sell that aligns with your goals – be it a specific target price or time frame or a broad understanding that if your investment thesis changes, it's time to cut bait – will make you a much better investor in the long term... and maybe help you rest a little easier at night.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
May 27, 2026
